'.IJ.~'!' .in Afr':'c'!u· Linrui3tict ollIDE' ~'. JlLL~lbf'r 1, !o1arctl 1977

SOME CONSIDERATIONS ON THE NEW LEXEME BEAU IN LmGALA

Salikoko S. Muf'wene The University of Chicago

Discussions of borrowing have tended to concentrate on phono­logical adaptations of the borrowed terms e:nd/or semantic dis­placements of native terms effected by the borrowing. Little studied has been the question of the place of borrowed items in linguistic competence, defined as lithe ability of a speaker to pair sentences with presuppositions relative to which they are well-formed or grammatical." The lexical item b~ in Lingala is identified as probably having come from French beau-frere but takes on a function in Lingala identifiable by the features of AFFINITY, COLLATERALITY, and MALE. A full un­derstanding of this term must also take into consideration its vocative or referential use and the degree of formality or joviality to be indicated between user and referent.

_. General Observations

Studying a new word, whether a borrowing or a coinage from the native

.e,:ical wealth of a given language, is actually nothing new in linguistic

iterature. 1 A look in the bibliography of such a classical work as Bloom­

.'ield's Language reveals to us that he was in~pired by the works of nine­

·,eenth century scholars, including G. Hempl, R. Lenz, P. Grade, H. Schuch­

~rdt, A .. Darmesteter, and H. Paul. Bloomfield's devotion of three chapters

)f his book to a survey of borrowings attests to ho'" much this topic was of

_nterest at his time.

However, ..... e will note that up to the fifties and sixties studying bor­

'owings essentially consisted in describing how much the morphology of the

lWe should like to express our most sincere gratitude to our friend J. Ndo~a (~ative of Kinshasa), who with his ..... ife (also native of Kinshasa) :mthus~astl.cally accepted to check our data and gave us advantage of his linguistic kno ..... ledge in discussing the drafts of the present paper. We ~annot fail to heartily thank Professor Kostas Kazazis for also reading the -"arne drafts, kindly raising questions of interest and providing us ..... i th some ~seful pieces ~f advice. Needless to add lie assume alone full responsibility for all the fal.lures of the present analysis.

82

item has changed or remained the s8.Ille, and in stating hO\/' much the meaning

of the item has shifted (Le., narrowed. broadened or vas absolutely dis_

placed). Associated with such nwnes as Weinreich [1953] and Haugen [1953]

is inter alia the interest in the analysis of the semantic and stylistic in­

fluence of the loanword on the native synonym if there is any, and/or of the

particular stylistic and/or dialectal function{s) of the borrowed item it­

self. Even though Haugen [1953:9] states in "The Bilingual Dilemma" the

folloving, it is important to note that be indeed does not still fully ac­

count for the actual behavior of the loanword in use in the host language.

"Languages differ not only in the specific terms they use for specific objects and actions; they differ even more in the kind of linguistic and social contexts in which these terms can be used. Even after one has mastered perfectly the grammatical situations, there are rigid limitations on the use of the terms to describe classes of objects."

This failure in the literature can easily be correlated vith an estab­

lished linguistic belief which up to now has not fully disappeared. In fact

linguistic competence has been identified with the speaker's knowledge of

the principles enabling him to produce form.ally "grammatical" sentences re­

gardless of the cOmlnl.Ulicative situation (with respect to the particular at­

mosphere, style of language, age and sex of speakers, and other factors

characterizing the comml.Ulicati ve event).

As hinted above, the traditional conception of linguistic competence

and grammaticality, despite the reluctance of some to change attitudes, is

in change. Since the late sixties, with works such as Lakuff [197lJ, Fill­

more (1971a), Lakoff [1972], Keenan [1971], and others, such new notions as

"relative grammaticality", "felicity/happiness conditions" and "presupposi­

tions" have been in current use in linguistics. Of all we would particularl'

like to cite the following definition of linguistic competence by G. Lakoff

[1971 :330]: "the ability of a speaker to pair sentences with the presuppo­

sitions relative to which they are well-formed" or grammatica1.

We actually believe that time has also come for those linguists interest!tl

in problems of language contact (the study of borrovings in the present case)

to consider this extension of the notion of linguistic competence. In the

present paper, the aim of whicb is the analysis of the borrovlng be.:u in

Lingala, we intend to sustain the above claim. We wish to la,y more emphasiS

on the actual socia-linguistic state and behavior of the loan in the host

language rather than on WHY and HOW the borrowing was effected. Among the

reasons for this shift of concern are: (1) the irrelevance (as we believe)

of the knowledge of such details for the competence of the speaker, (2) the

limitation of the scope of the paper.

Before giving those considerations we have gathered about the Lingala

lexeme b~. we believe that a brief digression related to the linguistic

and cultural situations of the subject matter as well as to some methodolog­

ical specifications may be of some use.

According to Guthrie [1948J, Lingala belongs to group c26. Its creolized

form (LingalaC) has become one of the present lingue franche of Zaire,2 and

is spoken particularly in Kinshasa (the capital) and the surro\Ulding area,

along the whole central Zaire Hi ver (from Kinshasa to Kisangani), as well as

in the whole northern part of the CO\Ultry. (In some other dialect of its own

it is also the lingua franca of the army allover the CO\Ultry.) The dialect

we will base our analysis on is the one known as Kibil, spoken essentially in

Kinshasa (but also in other cities) by certain youth whose age varies from

puberty to the late twenties or early thirties. Besides the lexical and

morphosyntactic characteristics it shares with the other lingue franche of

Zaire (we discuss them in the next paragraph). Kibil may be characterized by

(1) more borrowings, (2) a lot of lIexpressive switching of codes", (3) its

unstable lexical novelties, and (4) its quasi-solely oral form.

Like the other lingue franche of Zaire, LingalaC morphosyntax is known to

be simplified in comparison with less widely used Bantu languages and its

vocabularly is of various national and foreign origin. Its contact with

Western civilizations and languages has its obvious linguistic marks in the

flux of such vords as mesa, sabatu, mutuka. lopltalo, radial Jadio, perezidal

pe I ez i da .•• 3 some of which have been in use since the precolonial period

2The other lingue franche being Swahili (Bantu A. 42) Kituba (H 16) and Tshiluba (Bantu L 30).

lr'hey are from mean, respectively: Protuguese mesa 'table' sabato 'shoe'. English motor car ,French hop Ital 'hospital' rad io • CRadjoJ 'radio', president [pRezid!J 'president'. '

probably. some others (like the last item) since not long ago. Some of the

words parallel African contact with new cultural realities, whereas some of

the borrowings are harder to explain in terms of cultural novelties.

This, we suspect, may be the case of the new lexeme baa:; (as of many

other such words as mlsta, mast a ,sher~f, guere;.? ") to which some of the

rather conservative elderly speakers have not unfrequently reacted with some ~

contempt. Beau, as we will discuss it below, is essentially a word of

KiMl (though it may be heard in the standard form of LingalaC as a case of

"expressive code switching"). It is a kinship term, and is thus related to

one of the most central and traditional socia-cognitive domains.

In the present study we wish to distinguish between the "referential

use" of the term (by which the term is used solely to fix the referent) and

the "vocative use" of a term (by which the speaker not only fixes the ref­

erent but also summons this referent as the addressee in the communicative

act).

We will also use the following convention: Fbeau to refer to the

French lexeme beau. brother to refer to the English lexeme brother, --' -' and Lbeau to ref'er to the LingalaC lexeme beau. The orthography used

here for the Lingala/Kibil loanwords is actually our own and we do not know

of any standardized orthography of these words so far.

--' 2. Identification of T Beau

It is tmdeniable that the socio-cognitive position and the morphphono­

logy of Lb9i1u (as for the very sounds involved as well as the cvev syllabic

structure, quite typical of LingalaC) do not lead to the conclusion that the

word is a borrowing. However, the following few arguments seem to support

that it actually is a borrowing.

(1) None of the written records available to us lists either this form

or its kindred: Guthrie [1966] gives only the entry bokll6 to cover both

the spouse's relative and SpPa S• of which only the former overlaps with the

"These are from Englisb mister, master. sheriff and French guetter. They mean respectively: 'pal/person vhose behavior is appropriate for a group of' pubers', 'father'. and 'you see?' (colloquial).

SWe mean by "relative" non-parental member of the family. We will often use the following abbreviations, common in anthropological linguistics. to

-' semantic domain of Lbeau Blavier [1958J lists two separate entries of

which bokl16 covers only SpPa while monyala, equivalent with LingalaC

semek! • covers spouse's relative. Guthrie [1967] enters the stems bo

'they, them', bu 'mosquito', and b~ 'soil' which we find hard to relate

with the kinship term beau in LingalaC.

(2) Awkwardly enough, French, with its intellectually prestigious po­

sition in Zaire as the language of the intelligentia as well as the official

16l1guage, offers five items which are (initially) identical (at least pho­

netically) with Lbea;;; beau [bo] 'beautiful, handsome', beau-frere (Sp­

Br. SiHu), beau-fi Is (DaHu), beau-pere (spFa), beaux-parents (SpPa).

It may not be unnecessary to note that the phonetic word [bo] is used

under exactly the same felicity conditions in slangish versions of Kituba

and Swahili, calling also for the same "contemptive reaction of the rather

conservative elderly speakers" pointed above. Because of the coincidental

prestigious position of French in Zaire and of the presence of the five

lexical items noted above in this language, the hypothesis of the possibility

of LingalaC, Kituba and Swahili borrowing the word from their European coun­

terpart seems preferable to the possibility of one of them lending it to the

others.

Under that hypothesis, we face the problem of determining which of the

French words is the model for the loan. Let us quickly point out that with

the exception of Fbeau , all the others are kinship terms.

Fbeau [bo], is homophonous with Lbeau [bo], is an adjective, as in (1):

beau garc;:on 'handsome boy'

beau be be 'pretty baby'

[t is sometimes used as a substantive, as in (2) and (3), and has a special

~onnotation which m.ay be complimentary or ironical depending on the specific

!ontext of its Une. While it is a nickname in (2), it is a surname in (3):

·:2) Bien sur t Monsieur Ie Beau y sera. 'Of course, Mr. Handsome will be there'

3) Charles Ie Bel Malt Ral de France. I Charles Ie Bel (the. handsome) was King of France I

l ··.ho~en our descriptions of kinship relat~ons: B:- .. brother, Da .. daughter, ; ~ _ f~ther, Hu .. husband, Pa - parent, 81 .. sib11ng, So .. son, Sp = spouse,

1 - W"1fe. The first term possesses the second, e.g. SpPa _ spouse's parent : aDaHu .. parent I s daughter' 5 husband. '

66

Although this Fbeau has been borrowed in Kibil, it should be pointed that;

{al it is not a kinship term; (bl it is borrowed with the article. with

""hieh it reay be assumed to oakc one single morphophonological string flabol as in (4) and (5), vhereas the Kibil beau Ibo/ is only a two-segment word,

(el Llebeau has the same denotative meaning as rbeau and is also endovel

with the same connotations of irony and compliment in (4.5) (thougr situa­

tional contexts, the paralinguistic means of intonation and others, surely.

contribute to the expression of these connotations); (d) as it will appe&l'

below, L I ebeau and Lbeau have different sociolinguistic behaviors.

(4)

(5)

~"""""­Ye nkutu hiro above all

~ lebeau! (Ironic tone) the handsome

'Of course, everybody knows he is Mr. Handsome himself!'

Tala lebeau! look (Imper ) the handsome

'You really (do) look handsome + TIMEl'

In such a non-native-like utterance as (6) the co-occurrence of the trans­

ferred French adjective beau vi th Lbeau is far from being Wlgrammatical:

(6) -' Bea, SpBr SiHu tive

ngaf aza I ( Mod+be

---beau te handsome Neg

'!-tv brother-in-law is not handsome.'

With this las:...:...ase we may exclude the possibility of Fbeau being the

model for Lbeau.

If Lb~ has been borrowed on the model of either Fbeau-frere. Fbe2lt­

filS, Fbeau-pere or Fbeaux-parents • then it is also very likely that it bLs

undergone a truncation anterior or subsequent to the borrowing. Truncatior

may be asserted to be common enough in many languages. Although we have nc

evidence of the truncated use of the above words in Belgian or French Fren( b.,

we observe the following other cases anyway: dacty lographe , rad 1 ograph Ie

have been currently shortened into dactylo. radio, and in English lab.

phone, specs, plane, fridge are trWlcated forms from laboratory, tel£­

phone, spectacles. aeroplane. and refrigerator. Swahili. to mention f

Bantu language, offers sonner. which Polome assumes to have been trunc&tfi

from yklaxonner 6 (in a process, we assume, similar to the hypothesis under

consideration). And in Lingala itself the following few truncated forms may

be attested: (Kfm)T-;]1 < Tai Ileur • K1n < Kinsh~sa , yac;' Ge-; < Yaya

---­Georges.

The truncation hypothesis is then not implausible, not even the possibil­

ity of its application after the borrowing in Lingala. But still we have to

determine which of the four words is the model.

While Fbeau-pere. beau-f i Is and beau-parents designate lineal re­

lations, Lb~ refers to collateral ones. Other features in Lingala kin­

ship may also be noted. (a) Sons and parents-in-law entertain avoidance re­

lationships and their contacts are strictly formal. These factors do not

seem compatible with the jovial contexts in which Lbeau occurs. (b) Chil­

dren and parents-in-law address each other as papa or mama according to

whether the addressee is respectively male or female, and these terms connote

both familiarity and respect rather than familiarity mixed with a mood of

joviality as connoted by the use of Lb~. (c) LBe~ alternates with ...-'

another tnmcated cognate Lbeauf under the same felicity conditions and

shares with the latter the same socia-linguistic connotations, namely, it

is used in (very) informal contexts and it connotes familiarity, intimacy and

joviality. (d) In formal context Lb~ is replaced by not only the native

term semek i but also by its other cognate beau-f rere more commonly heard

in the speech of French-native language multi1inguals.

On account of the above it does not seem tU1justified to assume that

Lbe"tu has Fbeau-frere as model.

--' 3. Sociolinguistic Behavior of T Beau

We will hold here ~ the same contrastive approach used above for the

identification of Lbeau. We 'Will first compare the item to its French

model and then to its Lingala (q,uasi-) synonyms beaGf. se~ki , beau-frere

F8eau-frere covers the following kinship relations: HuBr, WiBr and

6This example is cited from Polome [1968:16]. We will, however, note that there also exists in French a verb sonner Ito ring (a bell) I, which shows little semantic distance from klaxonner 'to blow the horn' (auto­mobile) .

88

SiHu, the common semantic features of which may be +MALE, +AFFINITY. +SIBI.: IG.

It is used mostly referentially as in (7) which, in contrast with (8), im­

plies that the speaker insists on specifying to his addressee the partiCulr.r

kinship relation that links him to the referent of Fbeau-frere .

(7) t-bn beau-frere sera absent ce solr. 'My brother-in-law will be out tonight. I

(8l Jean sera absent ce soir. 'John will be out tonight.'

Its occasional vocative use seems formal. Assuming a dimension of "SOCial.

distance" (as in Gumperz (197lJ quoting from Roger Brown), the English and

French vocatives (9)-{1l), in which (9) shows the most distance and (11) t:e

least distance, suggest that there is not much intimacy achieved in using

kinship term or title instead of the first name.

(9) U-bn Cher} Mons I eur Dupont, 'Dear Mr. Thompson: •...

(lO) (Man) Cher beau-frere, •••• 'Dear Brother-in-law: '

(11) {Man} Cher Jean, .... 'Dear John: .•.• ,

There are no constraints whatsoever in its usage with respect to the speak~'s

sex or age, nor vith respect to the circumstantial context of its use, we-,Iie:

formal, humorous, and the like. ..-/

The SOCiolinguistiC behavior of Lbeau diverges in many respects !rOIl it:

model. It covers a larger conceptual domain, the enumeration of the categll'­

ies of which ve will close with a period. Besides the kinship relations H 1Br.

WiBr and SiHu, it also covers such relations as SpPaSo. SpPaSbSo. This

appears to be in accordance with the conditions underlying the LingalaC us ~

of the referential frere or its native near synonym ndeko ya moball •

Consequently, the relational feature SIBL!NG posited for Fbeau-frere v11~

be replaced by a less restricted feature COLLATERALITY. while the featuretl

MALE. AFFINITY will be maintained. On account of ethnical variations as t)

which kin to designate as Lfrere. ndeko ya IOClball • hence as Lb~. we

may assume the following rule:

89

(12) If an individual x may be referentially designated as Lfrere in relation to y. then x may be designated as LbeaG in relation to z if z is y's spouse (or yls SpSb ••• ).

As specified in the introduction, its users are restricted. So are the

actual contexts in which it can be used. A father-in-law informing his

children of the at"ri val of his son-io-law can use (13) or (14) but would

sound funny using (15):

(13) Semeki blnb akoya Ibbl. SiHu Con. you Mod+come tomorrow

'Your brother-in-law is coming tomorrow. I

(The appropriate English version should be: "John is coming tomorrow.")

(14) Beau-frere na bfno akoya lob:. SiHu Con. you Mod+come tomorrow

I Your brother-in-law is coming tomorrow.'

(15) *8eau na bina akoya lobi.

Its use is strictly informal and jovial, though connoting intimacy and

familiarity. It is consequently precluded from formal talks, hence from

the kinds of talks a father usually has with his children in the community

concerned here. It is used mostly vocatively. Its referential use, as in

I (16). is restricted to one of the two members of the (symmetrical) relation.

(16) Be~ aye! (out of excitement) SiHu Mod+come

'My/OUr brother-in-law has come! 1

(The appropriate English version lIould a.gain be: "John has come!")

In terms of social distance. the French/English scale seen in (9)-(11) is

reversed. Thus. while (l'r) is the most formal and distant and (la) only

achieves some relative intimacy. (19) implies not only intimacy, but also

familiarity. joviality and cordiality.

(1'1') Kalala akoya. Mod·;.come

'Kalala will come!'

(As corresponding to the English: "My/Our brother-in-law will come.")

90

(18) Semeki akoya. SiHu Mod+come

'My brother-in-Iay will come!

(Corresponding to the English: "John will come. ")

(19) Be~ akoya. (informal) SiHu Mod+come

'My/Our brother-in-law will come!

(Also corresponding to the English: "John viII come. tI)

L~ thus extends a social gesture that Fbeau-frere does not achieve.

It even becomes more indexical by its being associated with a special in­

formal talk, proper to a generation and virtually male exclusive vith re­

spect not only to the sex of the referent but also to the sex of' the

speaker. For reasons so far unknown to the writer and according to our in---formants, it seems that females do not use Lbeau in their talks, unless

they want to sound "crazy" or want to produce some expressive effect. --In all the above respects Lbeau. as was said above, alternates freel)

with ~ali"f •

L8eau differs from Lbeau-frere first in the fact that the latter

ignores the formal vs. informal distinction and occurs in any context.

Secondly, they are different in that Lbeau-frere does not know any re­

strictions with respect to the age or sex of the speaker. Thirdly, they

also differ in the fact that Lbeau-frere lacks the connotations of jovia>

ity, familiarity and intimacy (as a matter of degree) usually associated

with ~. However, Lbeau-frere is subject to rule (12) in its use.

LBeau designates half of the semantic domain covered by its native

near-synonym semek i , since in the latter the sex dimension becomes irrelt­

vant. In other words, the semantic conditions underlying the use of

Lsemeki may be posited as AFFINITY and COLLATERALITY. This gives the illl­

pression that the need to differentiate the sex of the referent justifies ~

the presence of beau in Lingala. This simply is wrong. since Lingala

usually specifies the sex dimension by apposition of either mobal i 'male'

or mwas f 'female' ~o any kinshi~ term. that does not incorporate the sex

dimension in it. L8eau and Lsemeki differ in the speaker's age and sex

restrictions as well as the formal vs. informal situation restrictions,

which Lsemekl ignores. Like Lbeau-frere, Lsemekl is not associated

vith any connotative power of the kind associated with Lbeau. except for

the relative intimacy achieved in its use. Sentences (17)-(19) locate clear­

ly enough the position LSerneki has in the "social distance" scale; and in

this sociolinguistic position it can freely alternate with Lbeau-frere.

Sentences (20)-(24) below intend to show that, while achieving a higher de­

gree of familiarity than Lse~ki 'Lb~ might also be subject to some

syntagmatic constraint: it does not seem to accept nominal apposition.

(other linguists more fluent in and/or familiar with the Lingala dialect of

Kinshasa may want to check this. )

(20) Semeki, nsango nfni? SiSp/siSb news Wh-Q

how are you?'

(More approximately: IIJohn: how are you?" We were told that "Brother-in­

law: how are you?" would sotuld funny and sarcastic in English.)

(21) Sameki Kalala akoya. SiHu Mod+col'le

, ( (My)1 brother-in-law) Kalala will come.'

(22) Se~ki K~lala, Ngalula SiHu(+MALE) (-MALE)

'Kalala, Ngalula is calling you.'

azob~nga call

yo. you

(Again, according to our English informant, starting this sentence with

'brother-in-law' vocatively used would sound funny, unless it is intended to

be specific, (say) by opposition to another individual named Kalala and who

may take himself as the addressee.)

(23) ?Be~ Mlala akoya. 'Kalala will come.'

(24) ?seau' Kalala, Ngalula azobenga yo. 'Kalala, Ngalula is calling you.'

4. Tentative Definition of rbe.(u

In the light of all that was said above we will try below to somehow

organ~ those conditions that we assume to be relevant for the proper use

of Lbeau. We viII make a distinction between those conditions or features

that linguists have so far considered semantic and the rest of our felicity

conditions tha.t we may roughly identify as presuppositional.

92

Since semantics as such has not been the primary concern of the present

paper. the description we give belov is nothing but a gross one aiming at

specifying the type of conditions that could be met anyway.

We assume that Lbea;:; is W1derlain by the semantic conditions AFFINITY,

COLLATERALITY and MALE. AFFINITY implies kinship involved through marriae:e

.... hereas COLLATERALITY specifies that only the collateral relatives of the

spouse are involved in this relation. We do not think that the specifica_

tion of such features as HUMAN would actually be necessary. Indeed, we be­

lieve it would be redundant, since it is presupposed by the kinship feature;

AFFINITY and COLLATERALITY already. the kinship relation being solely a

practice of mankind (to our knowledge).

In Lingala the item beaG indeed covers the semantic domain including

the kinship relations SpBr. SiHu. SpPaSo. SpPaSiSo. PaDaHu. PaSiOaHu •.• ill

accordance with rule (12). Its use is mostly vocative. Even when it is

used referentially (occasionally). it assumes that the speaker is the other

member of the relation so deSignated. It is more commonly used by male

speakers ("male exclusive"). In vocative use it is normally the elder mem­

ber of the relation that initiates the address. More than intimacy. it

connotes familiarity. joviality and cordiality, and its proper use presup­

poses a good feeling of mutual friendly Wlderstanding between tbe two mem­

bers thus related. Its use is also limited to informal talk. In its syn­

tagmatic relations it seems to reject any nominal apposition wbether in

referential or vocative use.

Only when none of the above felicity conditions is violated can we con­

sider the use of b~ in Lingala grammatical or correct and in accordance

with George Lakoff's definition of linguistiC competence above.

5. Conclusions

In this paper we have first tried to demonstrate that (a) Lb~ is a

loan from French, and (b) if it is so. it has been maintained in Lingala

dialect of Kinshasa in a truncated form. which a1 ternamtes freely with -' -' another truncated cognate Lbeauf. LBeau is used in an obvious socio-

linguistic complementary distribution (though overlapping) with its other

cognate Lb~-frere and its native near-synonym .99m9kl • It has not had

any effect on the SOCiolinguistic behavior of the native term but has.

93

instead, become heavily marked to the point of being 'luite indexical

(carrier of what Gumperz Cl97l:l24J calls "social meaning"). From a strictly

semantic point of view, it is important to note that it bas joined the class

of the few kinship terms that have the sex dimension incorporated in them:

namely, papa 'father'. mama 'mother'. mob~1 i 'male/husband'. and mwasl

'female/wife'. By opposition to other kinship terms for which sex is

specified by apposition of mobal i 'male' or mwasi 'female', it confirms

the arbitrariness/relativity with which the configuration(s) of semantic

features that parallel a thought are incorporated into single or combinations

of lexical items. Thus Lsemeki ya mobal i and Lbe:u designate the same

referent if used in the same circumstantial context.

ADDENDUM

We have insisted on the importance of presuppositiona.l features in this

paper. It is simply because we believe that the semantic features. which

underlie a lexical item, though absolutely necessary. are far from being suf­

ficient for the appropriate use of 'Words, nor for the proper understanding

of other speakers [Fillmore 1971b:274-5J. They can account neither for the

stylistic variations in the language use. nor for indexical use of words. as -' is the case for Lbeau. In relation to this we ma,y mention a definition of

language by Goodenough [1964:37J: nwhatever it is one has to know in order

to commwlicate with its speakers as ade'luately as they do with each other

and in manner they will accept as corresponding to their own. I!

Two facts have particula.rly struck us in this definition:

(a) It allows for consideration of those factors which have traditionally

been considered as non-linguistic and which therefore have had to be excluded

from any kind of linguistic description.

(b) It considers linguistic know-ledge or competence as active or in use

rather than as passive cognition.

In other words, we may sum up our complaint by pointing out the incom­

pleteness of many lexical descriptions which have contented themselves with

the specification of the strictly semantic conditions under which the item

described should be used. Linguists may not mind welcoming this complaint.

which in fact is not the first.

REFERENCES

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